Athanagild

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Athanagild

Athanagild (died 567) was Visigothic King

Visigothic Kingdom

The Visigothic kingdom was a Western European power from the fifth to eighth century, one of the successor states to the Western Roman Empire, originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under their own king in Aquitaine by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of the Iberian peninsula....
of Hispania

Hispania

Hispania was the name given by the Ancient Rome to the whole of the Iberian Peninsula . When Rome was a Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into Roman provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior....
(the Iberian Peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes modern-day Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar and a very small area of France....
, today, Spain

Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
and Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east....
).

With the help of a Roman

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
force, including a fleet to watch the coasts, sent from Gaul

Gaul

Gaul is the name used for the region of Western Europe comprising part of present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River Rhine....
in 551 by the emperor of the eastern Roman empire, Justinian, Athanagild defeated and killed his predecessor, King Agila

Agila

Agila I was Visigoths Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania . During his reign, in 551, a rival to the throne, Athanagild, arranged that Justinian I, the Byzantine Emperor, should send a Roman Empire force from Gaul to seize lands in southern Hispania, forming the province of Spania....
, near Seville

Seville

||-||}Seville is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of Andalusia and of the province of Seville ....
in 554. Athanagild then became king.

But the ports and coastal fortifications taken in the name of Athanagild weren't swiftly turned over by his Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
allies.

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Athanagild (died 567) was Visigothic King

Visigothic Kingdom

Hispania

Iberian Peninsula

Spain

Portugal

Byzantine Empire

Gaul

Agila

Seville

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
allies. Athanagild was able to recover a few cities but was forced to cede a large portion of Hispania Baetica

Hispania Baetica

Hispania Baetica was one of three Imperial Roman provincesin Hispania, . Hispania Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania , and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis....
(Andalusia) to a Byzantine governor of high standing but advanced years named Liberius

Liberius (praetorian prefect)

Petrus Marcellinus Felix Liberius was a Late Roman aristocrat and official, whose career spanned seven decades in the highest offices of both the Ostrogothic Kingdom and the Eastern Roman Empire....
. Liberius set about enlarging the gift.

Athanagild then endeavoured to drive his Roman allies out of Iberia

Iberian Peninsula

Spania

Spania was a Roman province of the Byzantine Empire from 552 until 624 in the south of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands. It was a part of the conquests of Justinian I in an effort to restore the Western Roman Empire....
in the south, that would last for a further seventy years. It seems clear that the Roman population of Baetica was solidly behind this orthodox patrician Roman governor.

There are few details about this far western extension of Byzantine power, which is overlooked by Justinian's historians Procopius

Procopius

Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent Byzantine Empire scholar of the family Procopius . A participant himself in the wars of the Emperor Justinian I, he was the major historian of the 6th century, writing the Wars of Justinian, the Buildings of Justinian and the celebrated Secret History....
and Agathius

Agathius

Saint Agathius, also known as Achatius or Acacius of Byzantium was a Cappadocian centurion of the imperial army. He was arrested for his faith on charges by Tribune Firmus in Perinthus, Thrace, tortured, and then brought to Byzantium , where he was scourged and decapitation, being made a martyr because he would not give up his Ch...
. It straddled the Straits of Gades and included major cities: New Carthage (Cartagena

Cartagena, Spain

Cartagena is a Spanish Mediterranean city and Spanish Navy in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula in the Region of Murcia.Cartagena has been the capital of the Naval Structure of the Spanish Navy in the New Millennium since the arrival of the House of Bourbon in the eighteenth century....
), Corduba (Córdoba

Córdoba, Spain

viktor chucchuc he sucsuck my dick||-||-|File:Cordoba Water Wheel.jpg|}Cordova is a city in Andalusia, southern Spain, and the capital of the C?rdoba ....
), and Assionia.

Although throughout his rule he had to fight the Byzantines, the Franks

Franks

The Franks or Frankish people were a West Germanic ethnic group first identified in the 3rd century as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River....
, and the Suevi, and was harassed in the Pyrenees

Pyrenees

The Pyrenees are a mountain range in southwest Europe that form a natural border between France and Spain. They separate the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of continental Europe, and extend for about from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean Sea ....
by the Basques

Basque people

The Basques are a people who inhabit a region spanning over parts of north-central Spain and southwestern France.The name Basque derives from the ancient tribe of the Vascones, described by Ancient Greece historian Strabo as living south of the western Pyrenees and north of the Ebro River, in modern day Navarre and northern Aragon....
, Athanagild strengthened his kingdom internally by conciliating the Catholics, whom his Arian

Arianism

Arianism is the theological teaching of Arius , a Christian priest, who was first ruled a heresy at the First Council of Nicea, later exonerated and then pronounced a heretic again after his death....
predecessors had oppressed. When the king of the Suevi declared for Catholic Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
about 560, Athanagild and the Visigothic nobility found themselves isolated in their Arianism

Arianism

Arianism is the theological teaching of Arius , a Christian priest, who was first ruled a heresy at the First Council of Nicea, later exonerated and then pronounced a heretic again after his death....
.

Athanagild's court at the city he founded, Toledo

Toledo, Spain

Toledo is a city and municipality located in central Spain, 70 km south of Madrid. It is the capital city of the province of Toledo and of the autonomous communities of Spain of Castile-La Mancha....
, was famed for its splendor. His queen was Goiswintha, who gave him two daughters: Brunhilda

Brunhilda of Austrasia

Brunhilda was a Frankish queen who ruled the eastern kingdoms of Austrasia and Kingdom of Burgundy in the names of her sons and grandsons. Initially known as a liberal ruler of great political acumen, she became notorious for her cruelty and avarice....
and the tragically murdered Galswintha

Galswintha

File:Philastre Fils - Meurtre de la reine Galswinthe.jpgFile:Galswinthe & Chilperic00.jpgFile:Chilperic I & Fredegunde00.jpgGalswintha was the daughter of Athanagild, Visigoths king of Hispania , and Goiswintha....
, who married the Frankish brother-kings Sigebert

Sigebert

Sigebert was the name of several early Frankish and Anglo-Saxon monarchs :*Sigobert the Lame *Sigebert of Gembloux *Sigebert I, king of Austrasia ...
of Austrasia and Chilperic, king of the Neustria

Neustria

The territory of Neustria or Neustrasia, meaning "new [western] land", originated in 511, made up of the regions from Aquitaine to the English Channel, approximating most of the north of present-day France, with Paris and Soissons as its main cities....
n Franks, who set aside his first wife in favor of Galswintha, then had her strangled.

Athanagild died peacefully in his bed, a fact his chronicler didn't overlook, and was succeeded by his brothers Liuva I

Liuva I

Liuva I , jointly with his brother Liuvigild, succeeded Athanagild in 568 on the throne of the Visigoths. Both were Arianism Christians. Liuva, who was favored by the Visigoth nobles, ruled the Visigothic lands north of the Pyrenees, until his death....
and the powerful restorer of Visigothic unity, Liuvigild

Liuvigild

Liuvigild, Leuvigild, Leovigild, or Leogild was Visigoths Visigothic Kingdom of the Visigothic Kingdom located in most of modern Spain down to Toledo from 569 to April 21, 586....
, last of the Arian Visigoths.

External links

, 1923, ch. XIX

Athanagild

See also

External links